


One More Last Chance

by Ailuromatron



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguously Angelic Castiel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Billie lives or whatever it is she does, Canon divergence after 12x06, Dean Prays, Dean in Heaven, Dean's lake, Heaven reorganized, Hypothetical Series Finale after short season 14, M/M, Major character death but it's all good really, Multi, Pining, Professor Xavier's School for Wayward Hunters, This was supposed to be ambiguous Choose Your Own Feels Destiel-Lite but whoops, fix all the things, how it should end, minor off-screen character death(s) referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9846974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailuromatron/pseuds/Ailuromatron
Summary: Turns out it’s possible to get a crick in your neck in Heaven.It fades almost immediately when Dean stands up and stretches. Nice. He has no idea how long he’s been dozing there. The clearing fuzziness in his brain and his eyes seems to say he’s had a solid nap, but the pitch of the sunlight over the water has shifted only slightly, if at all. Whatever the case, he feels rested. The grogginess is gone already. He’s ready to take stock of this new thing, here in this peaceful bubble. For the first time since he got here, he feels like he can focus his thoughts beyond stumbling through reactions. He resettles, this time into the chair, his arms braced between his knees. He stares out into the water and lets his mind run off-lead.Of course, now that he feels like he’s ready to work through the assorted practical mysteries facing him, he finds that they don’t matter so much. The daylight cycle, the bathroom, the relative geography — he shrugs, literally and metaphorically. Those details will come when they come. He’s got time, after all. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise him a bit if Charlie’s got some kind of Heaven 101 Quick Start Guide set up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Over a year ago, I came up with a fabulous idea of how I thought TPTB should end the series, a few years into the future, in a way that could somehow satisfy both the Destiel shippers and the not-so-shippy. It's taken me months to get it out of my head and onto the computer. And then my Dean went and messed the whole thing up by flatly refusing to leave the Destiel ambiguous. What can I say - he ships it.
> 
> This will probably diverge from canon substantially after 12x06, and I just assume that Mary's not long for this world on her second go-round.
> 
> The house may or may not bear any real resemblance to the boys' childhood home, I'm too lazy to check seriously.
> 
> Be kind, this is my first post to AO3. Con crit is welcome, but privately, please. I can be found on Tumblr under the same name.

Awareness seeps in gradually, the simulated darkness of sleep giving way to the livid red glow of sunlight through closed eyelids. Dean runs a quick mental triage, unwilling to face the glare directly just yet. He can’t quite recall where he is or how he got there, but the familiar scent and support of Baby’s bench seat underneath him pushes back the unease just enough to assess things more or less calmly.

He feels no pain—not even the usual baseline aches in his knee and shoulder—and he smells neither blood nor antiseptic. Not injured, then. He has no headache, and a hard squeeze of his closed eyes confirms that they’re not crusted over. He swallows, still half expecting the tight drag of dehydration, but no, apparently he’s not hungover, either. In fact, his teeth are weirdly fresh for just waking up, in any condition. He runs his tongue over them a few times, baffled.

Huh.

Dean swings his booted feet down to the floor behind the driver’s seat and pushes himself upright with a muted grunt of effort. He opens his eyes while slipping his phone from an inside jacket pocket. It clatters loudly to the floor when his bleary squint meets the impishly challenging gaze of the woman observing him from the front passenger seat.

“Hey.”

“ _Jesus!_ ”

The barest hint of a smirk tugs at her full lips.

“No, ‘ _Billie._ ’ You’re probably feeling a bit scrambled right now, but I’m pretty sure you remember _me_. I’ll give you a moment. See if the rest comes back to you.”

Billie shifts away from where she was twisted around to speak over the back of the seat, smooths her mahogany leather jacket down neatly, and leans back against the inside of the passenger door. A few black spiral curls tease up through the partially lowered window to dance in the breeze and she turns her face into the sun with the air of an alert but unruffled cat. “Go on, take a look around. I’ll be here.”

Dean stares dazedly at her profile, then shakes himself a bit and shifts his attention to the world outside the car. They are parked at a curb in what appears to be the outlying edge of a residential neighborhood. He sees the corner end of a street lined with widely spaced, two-story houses with broad lawns and deep, welcoming porches. He scowls in annoyance when he finds himself able to focus neither his eyes nor his mind more than a few lots down from where he’s parked, but forgets to worry about it once he turns back to the one in front of them. This house is what’s important for some reason. He regards it warily for a moment, then tears his eyes away to scan in the opposite direction, away from the settled feel of the street. He freezes, as stricken as he’d been when he was startled by Billie a few minutes before. The house still nags at the back of his mind, but this—this shabby building with a slightly listing facade, set back from a gravelly parking area and looking for all the world as if it grew there, mushroom-like—it isn’t right, it doesn’t belong here, it can’t _be_ here wherever here is. Yet here stands the Roadhouse, in all its former dusty glory.

With this, the tumblers slot into place and Dean pivots back to stare incredulously at what he finally recognizes is his childhood home. Not the remade version from his sparse adulthood visits to Lawrence, but the original as it appeared before it burned—as surely as the Roadhouse burned. Neither should exist. And when they _had_ existed, hundreds of miles separated them.

“Son of a—

“Is this a—”

he begins, but he’s already answering his own question before it passes his lips. No. He’s been trapped in Djinn dreams before, his own and others’, and this feels very different. There are no inexplicably filled blanks in his amnesia. There is no sense of carefully crafted reassurance. In fact, he is feeling decidedly not reassured, and he turns back to Billie for, well, probably not reassurance.

Answers, maybe?

Billie is watching him with her typical owl bright intensity. She has an index finger holding her page in the book that materialized while he was taking in his surroundings (handy trick, that), and she waits patiently for his next move. Dean reaches across himself to open the door and climbs out. He crosses behind the car and slumps against her, the metal sun-warmed and solid and soothing against his side. The frame rocks gently beneath him as Billie climbs out to join him on the sidewalk.

“What is this, Billie? What…” he trails off, his eyes wide, imploring. He figures he doesn’t need to be more specific. He’s never yet known her to be at a disadvantage.

She answers him with a question.

“What do you remember?”

Dean presses his lips between his teeth and pinches the bridge of his nose with a thumb and index finger. He squeezes his eyes and blinks as if the blurring and clearing of his vision will somehow make the images around him make sense. He pushes up from the car and swings the door open to lean across the seat and grab his phone from the floor. The screen tells him it’s Friday, February 1st, 2019. (No signal.) He slumps back onto the cushioned vinyl and closes his eyes again. Ghosts of fire and chaos flicker behind his eyelids. Flashes of stark wooden beams splintering and falling, floorboards warping and collapsing, something rushing toward his head. And he remembers.

“I was… I was on a hunt. It’s been quiet lately, I guess I got cocky.” He rubs his hand over his eyes, wincing, and shrugs sheepishly. “I went solo. It was in our neck of the woods, just five or six hours’ drive, and everybody else was taking some downtime or had just gone home couple’a days before, after a party at the bunker. Surprised me for my birthday, the assholes. Never thought I’d see forty, huh?” He glances up and flashes from his default smirk to a goofy half-grin at Billie before continuing.

“Was just gonna be a vamp or two, easy in and out. But of course it wasn’t. There was half a dozen or more, desperate and reckless. Damn strong fuckers, for starving.” He frowns, his eyebrows meeting in frustration. “I got most of ‘em, but then something happened with a lantern or somethin’, I dunno, there was smoke and I got trapped, I don’t know if the last ones got out or not. The house went to pieces around me and something hit me in the head and—

“That’s all I’ve got. I didn’t have time to call for backup or to report in.

“Goddamn, Sammy’s gonna _kill_ me.”

Billie raises one perfect, arched eyebrow and it hits him. He shoves up off of the seat and leans over the open door, torn between agitated need to _run move lash out_ and a surge of clammy nausea.

“Holy Shit.”

“Yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Wait.” Dean peers up at Billie from behind the car door. “What happened to the Empty? This looks like…not that? Not that I’m complaining!” He holds his hands up, entreating and defensive at once, and continues in a rush, “But I’d like to know where I stand, yeah? Is all this what it looks like? And if it is, how in the He—” He coughs and clears his throat. “Uh, how am I even _here_? Wherever this is. And how does it all work, now? The powers that be haven’t exactly been chatty lately.”

Billie angles her body away slightly and leans back against the car, a half smile teasing her mouth. She waits a beat, then begins speaking, low and clear. “It would seem that not even I am immune to the indomitable charms of the Winchesters.” She sighs with an air of rueful self-censure. Dean can’t tell if it’s put on for his benefit or not. His responding smirk earns a brief hint of eye roll, but she continues without further pause. “You’ve _behaved_ these last years since you saved the world again, Dean Winchester. I’m impressed. Yes, me. Impressed,” she answers his eyebrow. “You’ve grown up. You’ve allowed _Sam_ to grow up. And the work you’ve done together to secure the education and training of the next generation of hunters has not gone unnoticed.”

An uninhibited smile blooms over Dean’s face at this. He is so damn proud of what he and Sam and the others have built. It’s steady and satisfying in ways he never thought he’d get to see, and for all his mock annoyance and jokes about running Professor Xavier’s School for Wayward Hunters, in less guarded moments he even openly admits how impressed he is with the crew that calls the bunker home. Sam has come into his own as a modern Man of Letters, holding court over the library, digital and analog. He never did get his picket-fenced bungalow and day job, but he’s found his niche and the perfect partner to share it with. A wave of grief washes over Dean at the realization that he’s finally really truly left Sam behind, but it lacks the side of guilt he’s always reasonably assumed would come with it. Eileen and the others will be there for his little brother. Sammy’s going to be okay, and Dean is still smiling in spite of the tears tracking down his cheeks.

The party a week ago was a perfect snapshot of all they’ve accomplished. Donna and Jody had timed their regular visit to match up with his birthday, so casually that he hadn’t realized the timing. Not long after the world failed to end (again), they’d set a habit of driving down from their places to check in, claiming rooms for themselves down the hall from Sam and Eileen’s (and if they eventually stopped using the second one for anything but storage, no one minded). Soon, those visits had developed a more organized purpose, as small groups of young hunters began to treat the bunker as a headquarters and training center.

Claire came first, staying behind after a Donna and Jody visit, at loose ends after Alex moved out to start college in Oregon. Krissy, Aiden, and Josephine came next, and were put to work clearing out a new bank of rooms in an untouched wing of the bunker. A pair of brothers in their early twenties, Barry and Paul, joined the party after their parents and sister were killed by a family of ghouls, and were settling in to their new chosen vocation with the understanding and support of the other kids. Linda and Cas had been keeping a wary eye on the maybe-more-than-friendship that seemed to be developing between Paul and Claire.

Dean grins, remembering the morning that Linda Tran had showed up on their doorstep, somehow aware of their new charges and absolutely convinced of their collective inability to manage them properly. She had installed herself as de facto dorm mother and made herself indispensable, organizing everything from the laundry to gym schedules on color-coded spreadsheets. Her greatest satisfaction was found in relentlessly drilling anyone who hadn’t yet graduated or gotten their GED, a group which rapidly diminished under her unwavering tutelage. The one place she hadn’t gotten a toehold was the kitchen, and Dean barely suppresses an eye roll at the thought of how quickly she’s likely to take that over with him out of the picture. Still, the impulse is more fond than irritated. Mary’s time in the bunker had been all too brief, too short to leave much of a motherly imprint beyond the indelible marks her memory had already left on her sons. As severe as Linda’s approach to mothering is, Dean couldn’t help but welcome it for the benefit of the kids if not for himself.

In addition to the usual crowd that comes and goes these days, they’d surprised him with visits from several others in their network of farther-flung hunters and consultants. Cesar and Jesse had driven up for the weekend, and damn, retirement looked good on them. Garth and Bess brought Kate with them, newly folded into their family, and took a couple of days to offer a mini seminar on the care and handling of werefolk. Dean rolls out a low chuckle, remembering Barry and Paul’s guarded, wide-eyed fascination with the trio. Even Aaron had Skyped in from somewhere in Eastern Europe for half an hour, splitting the time between social chit chat with Dean and business with Sam, following up on a case he was consulting on with Eileen.

After that, the evening had gotten pleasantly silly. There was pizza and pie for everyone, beer and good scotch for the legal adults, and covertly spiked punch for the self-proclaimed adults. The wayward trainees played Giant Jenga in a corner of the library while Eileen and Cas applied their not inconsiderable combined tactical experience to a game of chess at a side table. Sam kept the snack table stocked with Dean’s salty and sweet favorites while offering snarky encouragement to the more active participants. Dean had settled into a favored leather chair, putting his feet up and soaking it all in. It had been wonderful, and he is marrow-deep grateful now that he took the time to appreciate it then. The mental Polaroid of a tipsy Garth locked in an epic Twister battle with a stone cold sober Linda Tran brings a choked laugh to Dean’s throat. Garth had proved to be bizarrely talented at Twister, while caring not at all about the competition. Linda meanwhile struggled to maintain her composure against her innate drive to dominate, no matter the comparative limits of her reach.

Billie turns fully toward him, eyes wide in silent inquiry. He just shakes his head, his smile a little muted as he wipes his eyes, unable to pin down the words. After so many years of layered regret and grief, to have had the opportunity to live long enough for stability... To have had the privilege of watching Garth and Linda let loose with Bess looking on fondly, holding Garth’s unfinished beer… Dean’s smile brightens, his gaze unfocused. To be in the moment, watching the love of Sammy’s life match wits against the love of Dean’s, however complicated and undeclared…

And _there_ ’s another wave of grief, as Dean’s one true remaining regret surfaces. For all his learning to live in the moment, the trouble with stability is that it lulls you into believing there will always be more moments. He had found too many excuses to put off risking the easygoing impasse between him and Cas, and now it’s too fucking late.

Again.

For real.

He thinks.

Probably?

He doesn’t even know what it _means_ now, where they stand, where _Castiel_ stands as a mostly recharged but retired angel, whether Heaven will effectively be a benevolent prison for Dean now. Because no matter what else it might mean, whatever or whomever he might find in that house across the street, if there is no Cas, no hope of Cas—

Dean crumples a little inside, brought fully back to the present. He rubs his hands roughly over his eyes and down his face before straightening. He steels himself, sets his jaw, and looks back up at Billie. Words aren’t anything like enough, but they’re what he’s got. He answers her appraisal from a few minutes before, his voice deep and thoughtful. “Yeah. We did good.” He’s distantly impressed with how steady his voice is, though maybe it’s not as steady as he hopes because he can see her expression soften in response.

He can’t take the uncertainty any longer. “Tell me. Please. What does this mean? I’m friggin’ honored, and, and grateful, shit, I seriously am, I know you don’t impress easy, and you’re a damn sight harder to bribe than your old boss,” he instinctively flashes a hint of his old flirty self before scowling, “okay, not at all bribable.” Billie all but preens, and he’s reminded again of a satisfied cat. “Yeah, yeah. You’re immovable. I got it. But throw me a bone here. I’m…” His voice breaks and he goes quiet.

Billie eyes him appraisingly before responding. “I can’t tell you what, or whom, you’ll find here,” she inclines her head almost apologetically, “but I can give you the Cliff’s Notes on how things work now.”

She opens her door and dips down to settle sideways with her legs stretched out before her over the curb and her arm draped along the back of the seat. Dean angles himself forward a bit and wedges his right foot between the frame and the door to prop it open. He schools his face into a neutral expression and tries not to fidget.

“As you may have guessed, when the Darkness and Chuck left,” she permits herself a barely there curl of the lip at his name, “the ever-shifting power vacuum in Heaven collapsed like a dying star. Everybody with any connection to what you call ‘Angel Radio’ felt it. _Seismically_. And then there was radio silence. Not even static.” Billie’s eyes flash with the magnitude of what she’s recalling. “It took time, a lot of time by mortal standards, before anything came back online. I only get an occasional coherent broadcast, but it seems that they’re governing by…committee?” Her raised eyebrow here speaks volumes at high volume, and Dean snickers quietly in commiseration. “Anyway, those of us who deal in souls have pieced together a rough understanding of the new framework. The Heaven you knew is still here in concept, but the actual management has developed a decidedly more human touch.” She offers another highly communicative eyebrow flash. “I leave the implications of that to your interpretation, as you will.”

Dean just blinks and waits for her to continue. He knows she knows he’s waiting for her to tell him how this applies to himself.

“Some things you’ll find familiar, but they are connected differently. The old system of isolated lock boxes has broken down. The work that your friend Ash began has continued, and there is a degree of free will here that may surprise you. You are free to wander, to see whom you will, so long as all parties are willing. And everyone you see here is who they are. The old diorama setup with soulless players to complete the memories has gone. If you’re looking to revisit a memory, you’ll have to find the others who were there – or wait for them to find you.”

Dean recalls the scene in Sam’s manufactured Heaven with the Thanksgiving meal and wonders how awkward _that_ might be now.

“There is closure available here, to those who would seek it with good will. Of course, eternal inertia is still an option, but somehow, I don’t see that as being your thing.” Her drawl is rich with unspoken commentary.

Dean is all but vibrating where he sits, perched tightly, barely inside the car.

Billie pulls herself up, steps aside, and shuts the door with an unmistakable note of finality. “Well, Dean. Any questions? I have places to be, souls to collect. Lovely as it’s been to see you on this side of the veil.”

For a moment, he remains in place, mind spinning yet somehow simultaneously blank. He looks up at her, bewildered, his green-gold eyes glassy and unfocused, clearly trapped on a tightrope between panic and resolve. The one question that matters is the one he cannot push past his lips. She offers him a smartly manicured hand, and he accepts it, finally coming to himself, and allows her to pull him up to standing. He pockets his phone out of habit, tugs his jacket into place, and squares his stance before gently pressing the door closed. Billie startles slightly when he pulls her into a tight hug, but pats him firmly on the back and steps away smoothly when he releases her.

“Thank you, Billie.”

She opens her mouth to speak but abruptly stills and shifts her gaze a bit, clearly listening to something Dean can’t hear. A soft, secret smile starts in her cheeks and spreads outward to her eyes and mouth. She shakes her head just barely in answer to his questioning expression, and squeezes his arm briefly in dismissal.

“You’re going to be just fine, Dean. Go and meet your eternity.”

Dean glances down at the sidewalk for a bare moment. When he lifts his face he is alone.


	3. Chapter 3

For several minutes, he feels as lost and dazed as when he first woke up. Gradually, his vision sharpens to something approaching normal, and he begins to notice his other senses more naturally, as if they're coming online after being in some sort of sleep mode in the distraction. The light breeze is pleasant on his face, the sun warm again after the chill of shock, even the smell of grass and—is that grill smoke? Someone is _grilling_ nearby. He feels pleasure at the scent but no answering pang of hunger. The beginning of a self-conscious joke about barbecue and Heaven teases at the edge of his brain, but he allows only a fleeting smile and doesn't bother finishing it. He hears rustling in a nearby shrub, and a pair of small gray birds emerges into his peripheral vision. There are voices now, barely there on the breeze, maybe coming from behind or inside the house.

Dean turns to take a longer look at the house, confirming some memories and filling the gaps in others. The siding, the windows, the porch, the front door are all as he remembers, and he can just make out the edge of the extended garden fence along one side. His mother's garden. He pushes down a surge of vertigo and takes an unconscious step forward, toward the yard. Movement barely visible past the side of the house catches his eye. A man's pale arm in a chambray sleeve rolled up below the elbow, sunlight glinting in silvery hair just for a flash as he places a pot of geraniums on a hook over the top of the low fence. A trill of vaguely familiar feminine laughter follows from that direction and he senses more than sees a shift in the light and shadows that implies two people moving there.

Now there's movement in a front window. The living room, he thinks, or was it a spare, office room? He can just make out the silhouette of a person lifting something to the side. The figure freezes, seems to sense him watching, then turns with a flash of auburn and Dean can just barely hear a shrill, excited voice call, "He's here! Oh my god, he's here everybody!" He knows that voice. _Oh God. Oh Chuck, I'm sorry I ever doubted you._ He'll deny it to his dying da— Er, whatever, he'll never admit it, Dean _swoons_ and his knees would have hit the ground but for the strong and womanly arm that appears suddenly around his back and up under his left arm to support him, with another hand clasping his right bicep in a firm grip.

"Easy there, fella. I've got you. Wouldn't do any real damage, but let's see if we can keep your dignity intact, eh? Glad I caught your momma's call when I did and headed over."

"Ellen? Ellen! You're—" he chokes out. He wraps his right hand over her hand where it's still holding him tight around his ribcage.

"Breathe, baby" she says, her eyes twinkling dry humor. "You don't need it, strictly speaking, but it'll help your brain remember how to calm down."

Dean just stares, greedily drinking his fill of her face, just one of so many he never thought he'd see again.

After several beats, she speaks low, aiming her voice into the space between them. "It's gonna be a lot to take in, I know it. Try and remember you'll have as much time as you'll ever need to understand it all and catch up, okay?” She waits for his eyes to focus on hers. “No one's been in a hurry to see you here," her eyes crinkle brightly, "but once we got word that you'd finally done yourself in permanently, everyone's been eager to join the welcome party, and you might find a full house in there."

Another voice carries from the back yard, the barely discernible tone suggesting friendly disagreement. The unmistakable _thwap-BANG_ of an old-fashioned wood-framed screen door slams behind someone. There’s more movement in the front windows, though the front door remains closed, and no one comes quite so close to the glass again. Dean can feel them giving him the space to make the first approach.

Ellen squeezes him to her side, sharing her comfortable sturdiness. "You just let me know when you're ready, and we'll go on up." He leans into her and breathes, noticing the scent of cheap whiskey and beer foam and wood polish and glass cleaner that always hung in an easy cloud around her, even outside the Roadhouse. He thinks it might be the most real thing he’s felt here since Baby’s seat beneath him.

“My mother didn’t have geraniums.”

Ellen cocks her head slightly at the apparent non sequitur (the evocative yet out of place tilting squint doesn’t make his stomach clench and his heart stutter, it _doesn’t_ ) but she looks past him to the flowers on the fence and understanding clicks. “Ah. Right. You’ll find that you can rely on the, uh, ‘templates’ Ash calls them, but not necessarily the details, once a place has been set up. It looks like Fred’s been busy in the garden. Mary kinda turned him loose out there. Makes them both happy. She never much liked to garden back in the day, once she got past feeling like she was supposed to, what with this yard and all.”

“Fred?”

“Fred Jones? He says you and Sam and your angel saved him from himself a few years back. Made sure to keep in touch once he joined us.”

Dean’s pretty sure he managed to hide his visceral response to her casual mention of Cas, he wants too much to deny (claim) the flip reference to his belongingness. He nods with a strained smile, recognizing Fred’s story. “I remember, yeah. That was a wacky case.”

“He’s an interesting guy.” If Ellen caught his discomfort, she doesn’t show it. “He enjoys his gardening, and he’s kind of adopted your mom. Her folks, well, they don’t come around much.”

Dean and Ellen wear matching grateful grimaces. Nothing else needs to be said on that subject.

“Most evenings he joins Mildred and her husband out back to watch the sun set.”

“Mildred?” Dean makes it most of the way into a wide grin before he catches himself and frowns, his eyebrows darkly together, conflicted.

Ellen barks a laugh. “It’s okay, Dean. We get it.” She squeezes his arm briefly. “No one wants to see anyone here. But it is what it is, and of course, we all look for everyone here eventually.” Her tone drips grim humor.

Again, Dean can’t bring himself to ask what he most wants to know, about who gets to be here, so he shakes off his gloomy posture, swings his arm out from under Ellen’s to wrap it around her shoulders, and asks instead, “Ready to make all the introductions?” with all the charm he can muster. They step together onto the walk and make their way with measured strides to the front door, their leisurely pace belying Dean’s warring anxiety and eagerness.

He takes in a deep breath and allows himself the barest hesitation before reaching out and grasping the door handle. The door swings open easy, drawing him in with a whoosh of air sweet with cinnamon and coffee. Mary meets him there just inside and wraps her arms tight around him, stretching up on her toes to lift her chin onto his shoulder for a few beats, then steps back to look up at him, her eyes shiny and her smile soft. He just registers Ellen patting him gently on his other shoulder with a low, “I’ll be out back with Jo and Bill when you’re ready,” as she continues past them. There are others, holding back in small clumps here and there. It's obvious to Dean that they are trying very hard to give him space and not overwhelm him, and he wonders what sort of negotiations must have gone into deciding who got to approach him first.

"Hi, Mom." His voice is small, and her smile goes even softer. She squeezes his hand and steps back to give him space to move into the room. Dean's hand comes up as if to reach for her arm to keep her close, but he drops it back to his side and turns toward the others, curious.

He barely has the chance to lift his head before his vision is full of flying red fluff and his arms are full of Charlie and his eyes are full of tears and he breaks down and sniffles wordlessly into her hair. Her arms are too tight around his ribcage, but it doesn’t matter. He’s pretty sure he couldn’t breathe right then anyway. He senses more than sees the others retreating to give them space, probably settling elsewhere to wait for him. He has no idea how long it is before he manages to get himself together enough to move his face from the side of her head where he has thoroughly wet the hair above her ear. He’s far beyond shame, however, and beams down at her upturned face, resting his arms lightly on her shoulders while she reaches her hands up to wipe away the tears on his cheeks before making a show of shaking the moisture off at her sides. He has to laugh a little at this, and she pivots on one foot and swings her arms back a bit, grinning her elfin grin and looking well to the far side of smug. He can’t begrudge her that, but then, he never could with Charlie.

“You look good, kiddo. God, I missed you.” and he has to pull her in for one more quick, tight hug, which she returns with her characteristic vigor.

“Of course you did,” is her reply, and he rumples her hair like a proper big brother. “I’m awesome,” she finishes, and from over her shoulder Dean hears an enthusiastic, “Damn straight.”

“Ash! I shoulda known you two would find each other. The Queen of Moondoor and Doctor Badass are a match made—” he stalls on his joke, and Charlie snorts indelicately.

A head of shiny, straight dark hair, ever messy from its owner running frustrated hands through it, peeks out from behind Ash’s shoulder. “More of a trio, really, Dean.”

Dean launches himself past Ash in two long strides and then stops short in front of Kevin, just grasping his shoulders and staring down at him before pulling his hands back, suddenly unsure, not knowing how welcome he’ll be. Kevin just smiles his sad, sincere little smile and steps into his space to offer a hug, letting Dean squeeze him back just enough to let him know it’s okay between them.

“‘S’okay, Dean. I know. Anyway, I’ve had some time to make my peace with everything. My mom’s okay, I got out of the veil. And it’s darn hard to stay all resentful and emo around _her_ , anyway,” he says, gesturing at Charlie with a tolerant roll of his eyes. She bounces over obligingly and throws one arm around Kevin’s shoulders and the other behind Ash.

“It’s been one big LAN party up in here!” she grins, and Dean just shakes his head, content in his bafflement. He has no idea what she’s talking about, but seeing her happy, seeing the three of them happy, it’s more than enough, and certainly more than he deserves. Charlie narrows her eyes at him for a moment like she knows what he’s thinking, then relaxes her face with the equanimity of someone who’s secure in the knowledge that he has the time and space to work out his shit like he needs to. “Speaking of which, I’m _so_ glad you’re here, well, I’m not _glad you’re here_ , but I’m glad you’re _here_ , oh my _God_ , Ash, you’re supposed to stop me before I put my foot in my mouth! Anyway, I’m glad to _see_ you! But we’re gonna let you get to everybody else and I’m gonna go back to owning these two on CnC in the den. When you want us, anybody will know where we are, ‘kay?” She turns the two men in a tight arc with her petite frame and the force of her benevolent queenly power, and they shuffle off toward the hallway with varied levels of enthusiasm. All Dean can do for several seconds is stare where they’d been standing a moment before. For the nth time in the past hour or so, he shakes himself centered, and takes stock of his surroundings.


	4. Chapter 4

It seems that the others have decided to wait on him to seek them out. Dean can’t decide whether this is helpful or not. The lack of pressure, that’s good. But what now? He realizes he’s clenching his fingernails into his palms and releases his fists at his sides, rolls his shoulders slightly, hoping he doesn’t look as freaked out as he feels. His gaze tracks over the distantly recognizable room, the lamps in sconces on the walls, the rug, the framed photos on the built-in shelves. The long couch still has an afghan tossed artfully over the back. The upholstered high-backed chair is turned away from him to face the fireplace. Dean can see a pair of familiar work boots, their ankles crossed on the overstuffed ottoman. He hears the gentle rustling of someone fiddling with the pages of a book they aren’t really reading, then the muted, concussive _thunk_ of the book being closed. A gnarled hand appears to one side and hefts a conspicuously aged hardback onto the low side table. The boots drop to the rug and the chair shudders with the shifting of its occupant as he pushes up to stand.

“You gonna stand there all day boy, or are you gonna come over here and say hello to an old man?”

Dean doesn’t remember taking the first step, but presently he’s across the room with his arms tight around Bobby’s shoulders and Bobby’s hands pressed firm between his shoulder blades, breathing deep of library dust and old scotch from the older man’s soft flannel collar. Much of the existential weight still remaining after the catharsis of reuniting with Charlie releases from his shoulders, leaving him near-giddy from the lack. They pull back at the same time, eyes shining but not quite leaking, mirroring quirked grins. Bobby pats Dean’s nearest shoulder solidly and gestures to the ottoman while pushing it back a few feet from the chair and easing himself back down. Dean takes the invitation and perches on the edge of the ottoman, eyes never leaving Bobby’s face.

Both of them drop a decade or so of wear and care, years’ worth of the posturing that once guarded against all but fleeting flashes of affection. Dean commits himself in this moment to hold on to this, to continue busting up the old, defensive masonry, and to leave the dust behind him. He knows that these second (third, fourth, fifth) chances are a gift he can never hope to earn, and his (forever) missed chance with Castiel spurs his resolve even as the gut punch of thinking about it leaves him reeling. Bobby's eyes flash shrewdly when Dean’s expression dims at this inward self-recrimination, but he keeps any thoughts he might have on that to himself. Instead, he settles back in his chair and demands with brusque cheer that Dean fill him in on Sam and their lives. It’s been too long since the last solid updates came through with the mass migration of souls from the restored veil.

Bobby looks on with frank satisfaction as Dean alternately lights up, softens, and smirks his way through a rambling summation of their triumphs and travails. For his part, Dean takes open delight in Bobby’s reactions, tangibly soaking in his erstwhile father figure’s alternating approval and rueful acceptance. They sit and grin at each other for a long moment when Dean details Eileen’s admittance to their little family, and Dean wonders if somewhere Sam feels the flush of being teased without knowing why. He tells of Jody and her girls—and Donna—and glances up curiously for Bobby’s response. He just smiles a soft smile at his hands and mumbles, almost just to himself, “Good for her. A good woman, that one.”

This brings Dean up short as it occurs to him that those who’ve been here before him haven’t exactly been in stasis. He stammers out, “I can’t believe I haven’t even asked after you. How are you? Is…?” he trails off, suddenly shy of asking. Looking Bobby barely in the eye, he pushes out, “Is Karen…here?”

Is Bobby blushing? Bobby is _blushing_. “She’s probably out back with some of the others, wanted to give me time with you, or some fool thing like that.”

After surviving all the dramatic emoting of the last few hours, Dean thinks that this grin might just be the one that cracks his face into pieces. His face aches with the joy of it.

“Oh, hush, ya idjit.”

“Aaaaand that’s my cue to mosey on, old man,” Dean all but glows at him as he pushes up from his perch.

He stretches his arms, flexing his shoulders back with his hands clasped behind him, then swings his arms back and forth loosely, hesitating awkwardly. “Uh…so. Are you around here a lot? Am I gonna know how to find you, when I catch up with the rest of all this?”

“Yup. You do what ya need to do, and I’m sure somebody will clue you in to the system here when you’re ready for it, if I’m not already puttering around nearby.” Bobby looks down at his hands and twists a scarred silver band on his ring finger that Dean doesn’t recall seeing there before. “It’s a good thing going here these days. Not like when I was stuck before and didn’t see it.” Bobby shakes his head a little, then reaches up to where Dean is now standing over him to pull him down for a brief, awkward hug. “See ya around, son.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean straightens, rolling his shoulders a bit, and looks around. They’re still alone in the living room. As far as he knows it’s just Charlie and the guys down the hall, so he turns toward the kitchen, where he can hear low voices murmuring in what sounds like at least a couple of separate conversations. This has all been nothing but awesome, but for all the relief in the reunions so far, he’s of course waiting for the other shoe to drop. Dean’s lived (and, seriously, died) enough to know better than to trust too smooth a path, even (especially?) in “Heaven”. It’s all been hunky dory, everybody glad to see him, everybody so fucking _forgiving_.  What’s that phrase Sam used the other day, where your brain fights trying to reconcile two different things? Cogitative, no, cognitive dissonance, that’s it. He’s beginning to believe that this is, really truly, Heaven. And it’s amazing. Mom. Ellen. Charlie. Everyone. It’s just… _not_ everyone, even if it’s almost everyone. Of course, as much as he already misses Sammy, he’d rather miss him than have him, as long as possible. Sam will be along eventually it seems. _Thanks, Billie_. Later would be better than sooner. Dean hopes Sammy grows old and fat (Ha! He’ll probably die gumming his rabbit food) and has half a dozen weird, little hunter babies with Eileen ( _Sorry, Eileen_ ). Dean can wait for his brother. But even excepting Sam, he needs— Well. _Need_ has always been a dangerous vulnerability he could ill afford. And he’s too afraid to even glance sideways at the tiny flare of hope that all of this friggin’ wish fulfillment might otherwise inspire. Dean realizes he’s been staring into nothing for several minutes with—

Nope, not tears in his eyes.

Nope.

Fuck.

He squeezes the bridge of his nose hard, blinks furiously, and steps forward to the doorway into the kitchen.

It’s brighter here than in the front of the house, with wide open, west-facing windows to his left, over the counter tops and sink. His eyes track over the sunny yellow curtains, the crockery on the Formica counter, the old avocado green oven and range his mother had wistfully dreamed of replacing someday. Almost directly in front of him is the propped-open back door, recessed a bit and shadowed by the patio overhang. The screen door flexes every so often with the breeze, thumping a little when there’s a more assertive gust. He can hear the voices he now recognizes as Fred’s and Mildred’s—as well as a few others he can’t quite place—but just barely, as if they’ve moved away from the house, maybe further outside the garden. To his right, opposite the proper kitchen, there’s a breakfast nook with a table he remembers having four chairs, but it’s longer now than the picture in his mind’s eye, as if it’s had a leaf or two added, and an extra pair of mismatched chairs have been pulled in. There are three people seated at the table.

Mary is standing behind his father, reaching past his shoulder to put a pitcher (iced tea?) on the table. John Winchester’s head swings left at the creak of floor under Dean’s boots, eyes snapping to Dean’s face. His hands tense slightly against the edge of the table as he starts to stand but he catches himself and stays, waiting in his seat instead. Dean just stares, holding his eyes for a few long seconds before allowing his glance to sweep further. John looks…good. He wears his fifty or so years better than he did in life, now lacking the florid puffiness of his alcoholism and chronic insomnia. In spite of the passing tension, he’s composed and unruffled in a way Dean can’t remember ever seeing outside of vague, early childhood dreams. For now, Dean offers only a small nod of acknowledgment. John returns the nod just as briefly, his open expression carefully unchanged. It seems that after thirteen years it’s been both 36 years too long and not time enough for Dean to be ready to wrestle with his father. John can wait.

Next to him is Henry Winchester, affably relaxed yet as upright in posture as Dean remembers from their too brief association years before. Dean’s paternal grandfather is incongruously younger than John, a bit younger even than Dean. He offers a reserved, kindly smile and a slight lift of his hand in greeting. Dean nods to him in turn.

To Henry’s right and across from John, the third man sits with his face tilted down to where his hands are clasped loosely on the table. He peers up at Dean through straight, sandy brown hair, his expression careful and closed off, but far less bitter than Dean recognizes he has every right to be. Dean schools his face into what he hopes is a suitably neutral expression, desperate to hide the evidence that he, like everyone else, _had forgotten about Adam._ Still. Again. The wry glint in Adam’s eyes and the lifting of his chin tells Dean that while he wasn’t completely successful, his effort doesn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated.

After having been drawn so sharply to each individual in turn, Dean pulls his focus back a bit to take in the wider scene in front of him: his mother and three generations of Winchester men together and at ease with each other. He wonders how much work has gone into reaching this equilibrium, how much Heavenly time has elapsed compared to the years it could have been on Earth. There’s a strong sense about the room that this is a regular thing here, a familiarity of companionship and space that he recognizes. He’s felt it in the common spaces of the bunker these last months, and his breath catches on that recognition. Maybe he can have that here someday, too.

Mary is looking expectantly at him, wordlessly asking if he needs anything from her, and he smiles and shakes his head. A glass in his hand might give him something safe to focus on, but he has a quiet, compelling feeling that he’s not yet done with this initial walk-through. He isn’t looking for a distraction just now. As awesome as it’s been to be accepted so openly, even warmly, he still feels like a part of his self is missing. He’s no fool, he knows what’s wrong, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it in the privacy of his own mind just a few years before. And while benign denial-slash-deferral has been tacitly or even overtly encouraged for much of what he’s faced since he got here, Dean doesn’t have the same feeling about this. This won’t self-resolve with any amount of simple time. It’s not a matter of using Dr. So-and-So’s patented Seventeen Step Plan to work through it; this is foundational, not procedural. It’s either missing or it’s not, and no amount of group therapy or workshopping is going to fix it.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean returns to himself with a start, unsure of how long he’s been standing frozen in the doorway. This losing time thing is for the birds, and he wonders if it’s something that comes with being here or if it’ll ease off as he gets his bearings. He catches his mother’s look of sympathetic understanding as he pivots on one heel back toward the front of the house, but he doesn’t stop. He suspects that she understands more than he might want her to. He can feel his pulse wavering and his face flushing and forces down his alarm at that thought.

She’d be a safe, soft place to rest while he deals with this mess, but he can’t conjure up the words to pull her away to ask. There is no way he’s going to break down in front of his father, never mind the other men he barely knows, and he can feel his face start to crumple even as he turns. He pauses at the junction between the doorways and the hall, undecided as to whether to seek out Charlie’s assured comfort, or Bobby’s rough wisdom, or to yield to habit and go off alone somewhere else. He leans left for half a step before remembering that Charlie isn’t alone either, and his protective instinct remains so strong over her and over Kevin that he just cannot seek his relief there, can’t share this burden, no matter how willing or capable their shoulders.

Dean turns back to the living room. He feels over warm and flushed, still, so he peels off his jacket and hangs it on the coat rack between the door and the base of the stairs before heading to the couch, sitting gingerly on the edge closest to Bobby’s chair. He unbuttons the cuffs on his flannel and rolls them to his elbows. Bobby has reclaimed his book from the table, but it sits closed in his lap, his hands slack and his face towards the window. It’s no great surprise if he expected Dean would be back so soon. Dean turns his face to the window and stares out in parallel, soaking up enough wordless comfort to compose himself, to assure a steady voice, before speaking.

“I— ” he creaks out.

So much for a steady voice. He exhales a frustrated sigh through his nose and hunches over, resting his forearms across his thighs. He fiddles with his ring, spinning it back and forth. He notes for a near-hysterical moment that the humidity in his Heaven is nice and even. The arthritis aggravated by the temperature flux of wet Kansas winters has eased enough that his ring turns freely on his finger again.

Bobby continues to face the window, though his eyes shift toward Dean and his near eyebrow lifts expectantly. He waits. He waits some more. The other eyebrow lifts before both drop back down over a fondly indulgent grimace. He doesn’t speak; the “idjit” is implied.

Dean is grateful for the space to gather his thoughts. Hell, he’s grateful for all of this. Of course he is. How could he not be? By rights, he ought to be nowhere at all and a big lump of nothing to go with it. What’s wrong with him that it’s not enough? He supposes he shouldn’t be shocked that his fundamental brokenness followed him to Heaven. His neediness. His want.

Is this what it’s like to be a soul-mate, set aside for eternity?

He did _not_ just think that.

He can’t even muster up the mental energy to feel an appropriate level of disgust at himself for that bit of chick-flick-worthy drek. _Dumbass_. All of the dumb; all of the ass. And without even getting to have any of the—

Nope. Stopping right there, thanks.

Of course he’d form some ridiculous “profound bond” (he feels the air quotes, even in his head) with someone who probably doesn’t technically have a soul. And Chuck only knows what Dean cost him in the process.

_Cas, forgive me._

If Castiel can’t follow him here, if nothing remains for Cas after whatever life he has left, mortal or otherwise, he has no one to blame more than Dean. Dean drops his face into his hands, annoyed if unsurprised by the tears on his cheeks.

“Holy Hell, son, could you think any louder? What awful thing are you taking all the credit for now?” Bobby scowls out the question and leaves space for Dean’s answer with the air of someone determined to face an unsavory task and get it over with.

Dean laughs. He can’t help it. It burbles up and rolls out of him and he doesn’t bother trying to stifle it, he’s forgotten why he should. Even in his grief, the relief is tangible. He’s himself, Bobby is himself, this little family is as real as the one he’s left behind him. He sobers after this precious indulgence, wipes his face on his sleeve, and orients himself toward Bobby, who shifts forward to match him.

“Well, Bobby, you need to know it’s still me, right?”

Bobby doesn’t dignify this with a response.

“Bobby… I…”

_Jesus, man. Get a grip. Ask him._

It’s not like he thinks Bobby’s gonna judge him. But he can’t make his lips move. His heart is racing but the rest of his body is frozen. One part of his mind is running a rapid fire commentary about how he doesn’t deserve to know, it’s his own fault if he never sees Cas again, these last couple of years in the bunker have been more than he ever could have dreamed he’d get, and that can and will last him forever and anyway it’ll have to. Another part (in Dean’s voice but Sam’s cadence) is offering soothing reassurance that Bobby loves him like his own, he’ll understand, he might even have the answers Dean so desperately needs, if he’ll just open his mouth and say the words, come on, Dean, just ask him, you can do this. A detached third voice wonders dispassionately if this inability to speak is related in some way to the mutism he was afflicted with after his mother died (the first time).

“ _Dean_.”

The frank concern in Bobby’s voice jars Dean back out of his head, and actual words finally push their way out.

“Bobby, what do you know about who gets in here?”

Bobby is clearly not surprised by the question.

“Lookin’ for someone in particular?” Dean draws in a deep breath and braces himself to respond, but Bobby continues before he can decide whether to answer or deflect. “Or some _thing_? Don’t look at me like that, boy, I may be an old huntin’ dog, but I can understand new tricks. As if there’s anything new under the sun anyhow.” He huffs out a snort of derision.

“I was never much for your daddy’s ‘shoot first, ask intentions later’ routine.” He lowers his voice a notch _after_ saying this, and glances toward the kitchen. “I know you were all buddied up with a vampire. Sam talks in his sleep when he feels guilty.” Bobby’s forehead crinkles sympathetically, then he squints in stern but good-natured bemusement. “I don’t know _what_ to call your…whatever…with your angel, but damn it son, I know he’s more than earned your, um, _regard_.” Bobby’s verbal italics are, as ever, a thing of beauty.

“Now, assuming that _is_ what you’re sittin’ here not asking me, I hate to say I don’t really know what to tell you. We don’t have all the specs yet on the new order of things, assuming they’re consistent to begin with. Have you tried,” he stares Dean down, hard, “praying?”

Dean looks down at his hands, his face warm and his lips pressed together in a tight line. When he speaks, he doesn’t look up, and his voice is a creaking whisper.

“Bobby, I— I’m afraid. I honestly don’t know if he could hear me, even before this. I can’t hope, man. I don’t even, I don’t know what he is now. He hasn’t been a proper angel since, well. I mean, he’s been powered up and down so many times we couldn’t decide any more what was grace and what was…maybe a soul? I just don’t know.”

Bobby sighs and pushes himself up to standing. He grips Dean’s shoulder at his collar and squeezes for a beat before pushing off and heading for the front door.

“Well. Think on it, Dean. I suggest you take a long walk, maybe out past the yard a ways. Could be you find the geography surprisingly accommodating.” His expression is heavy with meaning that Dean can’t decipher, but affectionate, and Dean decides to set this mystery aside with the others to be examined later when he can think straight.

“Talk it out with your boy. Even if he can’t answer back, it might just do you good.” Bobby opens the door wide and pauses at the threshold. He jerks his head toward the hall to draw Dean’s attention in that direction and adds, “Remember there’s a side door off the mud room if you don’t wanna see anybody just now. I won’t be hard to find if you look for me later. Can’t beat the specials at the Roadhouse these days.” He grins and steps out onto the porch, pulling the door shut snugly behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

Bless Bobby for understanding that Dean isn’t ready for any more reunions right away. He had forgotten about the mud room John built onto the laundry when Mary was pregnant with Sam. Its outside door opens on the side of the house opposite the most used areas of the yard and garden. After being informed by her doctor that a second boy was on the way, Mary had declared that she would “not have _three_ of you tramping clumps of mud and gravel and _automobile sludge_ through my kitchen, thank you very much!” It’s funny, the way some early memories stick so clearly, all these years later.

It occurs to Dean to question what really happened to send his mother to the hospital halfway through her pregnancy with Sam. Four-year-old Dean knew that there had been some sort of scare, officially a fall, that had confined his mother to bed for a couple of weeks. After the things they’d learned at Asa Fox’s wake about Mary’s connections to hunting even after Dean was born, he’s left to wonder if that was really the end of it all, if she’d gotten completely free of hunting even then, if the story she told them last was the truest version. He figures he’ll probably never know for sure. Dean smiles tightly down at his feet with a grudging huff of a chuckle as he steps back past the stairs toward the hall and the rest of the downstairs rooms.

He passes an open bathroom and spares a thought to wonder if that’s a thing here or not. There was the lingering scent of baked goods when he first entered the house, and the iced tea at the kitchen table, but he assumes that the basic bodily processes have probably gone all angely along with the hunger pangs he should be feeling by now but isn’t.

Dean hears a rumbling harmony of voices further along the hall. First Charlie and Ash together, then Kevin, sharper in response. No actual words filter through; the door to the den isn’t fully latched, but it’s closed over enough to muffle conversation. He steps between it and the linen closet opposite with a carefully silent tread, happy to leave them to their fun. Whatever it is they’re doing.

The hallway bends to the left and he follows it into the laundry room, led by the crisp scent memory of lightly scorched ironing and store-brand detergent. The tiny window over the dryer is filmed over with starchy overspray just like he remembers. Dean smiles softly to himself. As a little boy, he’d been fascinated by the mottled patterns it created on the inside wall when the sun shone through it in the morning. The sun is on the other side of the house now, leaving the little room with just enough gauzy, ambient light to be functional. His gaze sweeps over the washer and deep sink on his left and back past the dryer on his right to the open doorway to the mud room, and he steps on through.

The mud room is tiny and dim and cooler than the main house by several degrees. There’s a long, low bench with a vinyl cushion along one wall. Built in beneath it are cube shelves just roomy enough to accommodate a pair of adult boots. On the other side, the sealed concrete floor slopes gently to a low drain, and there’s a simple spigot on the wall. Dean rubs his hands briskly over his arms at the change in air temperature, though the chill isn’t wholly unpleasant. It suits his introspective mood. John hadn’t had the time to insulate the addition before everything happened, though maybe he wouldn’t have bothered anyway. Okay, maybe it is a bit too chilly in here. Dean crosses to the door in a few long strides and, after a flick of his thumb against the deadbolt, yanks the handle inward and propels himself out.

As his feet sink into plush grass, his lungs release a stale breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. He can feel the quiet, percussive whoosh of air on his forearms, and he rubs at them again with a little shudder, brushing away the clinging dankness and his mood with it. His shoulders drop down from where they’d been trying to climb into his ears. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths before looking around from this new vantage point. To his right, he can see along the side of the house and across the street to where the Roadhouse basks in the lowering sun. He knows that to his left, there’s a gate into the fenced part of the back yard, and _people_ , and he keeps his eyes resolutely forward. Sue him if his logic is wonky—if he can’t see them, they’ll leave him alone, right?

Ahead, the street corner transitions weirdly into a wooded area. This is definitely not a feature of his childhood memories. There’s the expected sidewalk, then pavement, but then a vague gravely edge fades into scrubby grass before building into underbrush and an attractively diverse if unlikely assortment of trees. Dean can see what looks like the opening of a once well-worn walking path roughly opposite the door he just closed behind him, and he decides to accept the invitation it offers.

The light under the canopy provided by the trees has a dreamy quality, soft and clear and silvery-green. He can see the path easily, even though the angle of the sun ought to leave these woods in deep twilight shadow. As he steps past the first tree, Dean notes the distinct feeling of passing from one domain to another, and he’s half sure that if he turns to look behind him there will only be more woods as far as he can see. Or maybe tidy, green packets of lembas bread in his pockets.

He doesn’t look back.

He _might_ check his pockets.

He loses time again, walking the path, but it isn’t disorienting like it was back at the house. For long moments he’s hyperaware of the patterns of individual branches as he passes them, the stained glass clarity of the light and color, the musty scent of leaf mold, the uneven texture of the roots under his feet. Then he’ll find that he can’t recall the last however many minutes behind him, like when driving a familiar route, too tired, late at night. It’s okay, though. As he continues on, a sense of inevitability builds in his stride. His feet seem to know where to take him, more so than the obvious vector of the path. It’s like they just happen to coincide. Or maybe more like it was his feet that pressed the path to begin with, in another lifetime out of memory. Maybe he’ll wonder about that later.

The quality of the light shifts imperceptibly until suddenly it’s altogether different. Bluer than green, more gold than silver. The leafy smell changes too, becoming …wetter? Dean’s mental Rolodex finally comes up with the listing for this new configuration just as he steps from the woods to see it laid out before him. If he hadn’t already settled the question of Dreamworld versus Heaven, this would have been a definite check in the “dream” column.

The path delivers him onto a gentle slope of short, dense grass that drops down to mingle with foamy algae verging a deep, sprawling lake. The near shore is mostly smooth and broad and bare of trees, while across the water there are scattered inlets jutting in and out of the shoreline, and densely packed evergreens seemingly right up to the water. Ripples all across the surface reflect shifting blues and greens and grays. He’s got to ask Bobby about the whole daylight and time passing thing later. He has no idea how long he spent in the trees, but the sun seems to be at about the same mid to late afternoon slant it held when he left the house. It had been higher in the sky when he first woke up, but he can’t get a feel for when to expect it to change again. Time is weird here.

In the sparse, sandy scrub between the grass and the near beach, remnants of the path peek through, pointing to a simple fishing pier built out over the water. There is no sign of a boat anywhere, but a folding canvas chair sits at the far end. A rusty tackle box squats next to it, and a fishing rod waits on the boards alongside. Beautiful. Dean grins as he glances down to check his footing, and heads for the jetty. He tries to ignore the tightness at the outside corners of his eyes where his smile can’t quite push through, but even here in this little heaven within Heaven, his ideal piece of peace, a handful of interrupted dreams have forever altered the character of his memory. His smile twists into something more bittersweet than sweet, but doesn’t fail completely.

He stops before stepping onto the jetty, struck with the impulse to connect more with this space, to ground himself in it, to revel in its connection to what he’s lost. He drops to a crouch, tugs up the hems of his jeans and loosens his boots enough to pull them off, inevitably landing on his ass with a grunt in the process. He sets them neatly to one side, away from the edge, and tucks his socks into them before rolling his cuffs enough to clear the tops of his feet. He hauls himself smoothly back to standing—regaining the happy joints his decades-younger self never properly appreciated is _awesome_ —and resolves to just _be_ for a while. The smooth planks are warm under his feet and he feels his toes and arches spread to grip at them as he walks. He decides to skip the chair and opts instead to dangle his feet off the end of the dock. He startles when his toes skim the surface of the water. _Holy shit that’s cold!_

He eases back onto his elbows, and tilts his face to the sky, and the low-slung seat of the chair is there to cradle the back of his head. He rests this way for a while and lets his mind drift on the water.


	8. Chapter 8

Turns out it’s possible to get a crick in your neck in Heaven.

It fades almost immediately when Dean stands up and stretches. _Nice_. He has no idea how long he’s been dozing there. The clearing fuzziness in his brain and his eyes seems to say he’s had a solid nap, but the pitch of the sunlight over the water has shifted only slightly, if at all. Whatever the case, he feels rested. The grogginess is gone already. He’s ready to take stock of this new thing, here in this peaceful bubble. For the first time since he got here, he feels like he can focus his thoughts beyond stumbling through reactions. He resettles, this time into the chair, his arms braced between his knees. He stares out into the water and lets his mind run off-lead.

Of course, now that he feels like he’s ready to work through the assorted practical mysteries facing him, he finds that they don’t matter so much. The daylight cycle, the bathroom, the relative geography—he shrugs, literally and metaphorically. Those details will come when they come. He’s got time, after all. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise him a bit if Charlie’s got some kind of Heaven 101 Quick Start Guide set up.

So instead of wandering through some labyrinthine list of questions and issues, he finds himself drawn almost immediately inward, to the core of his heart, the center of everything. It’s no great revelation; he’s not _that_ emotionally constipated, thanks. He knows that his reason for keepin’ on keepin' on shifted from Sam to Castiel long ago, and not just because Sammy finally landed himself someone else to look after him. Dean had even admitted it to himself, while remaining too chickenshit to risk doing anything about it.

It would be easy to work himself up to historical levels of self-flagellation on this point—and he is legitimately disgusted with his inaction—but he reins it in without indulging too much. For one thing, as cliche as it sounds, he knows Cas wouldn’t want him to. For another, it would be frankly disrespectful. He’s come far enough to recognize that for all he lost in his hesitation, what he had—what they had together—was amazing, and had real value. If he’s being kind to himself, if he disregards the innumerable moments he backed down from out of fear, he knows that his regret now isn’t because he was unhappy or that it wasn’t enough.

And he’s pretty sure Cas knows how he felt.

Feels.

He’s a sharp guy, right?

Because that would be the great tragedy, above and beyond the missed chances, worse than spending years starving for touch, the years fleeing from anything that looked like a Talk About Feelings, all the nights sleeping alone and staring into the dark…

What if he doesn’t know?

_Fuck._

Bobby’s voice reverberates in his head. _Have you tried praying?_

Dean knows that in the end there will be no contest, but even so, in this moment the two horrible fears war against each other: Cas never knowing, against the risk of finding once and for all that praying doesn’t work.

Hope is a dangerous thing.

To buy time, then. If he could pray, if Cas could hear him now, what would he tell him?

Dean is careful in his phrasing, even in his head. This must be a hypothetical exercise, not a doorway to terrible hope. That whole maybe sensing longing thing, he won’t think about that. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut, his fingers and thumbs are digging into his thighs, his toes are curled against the wood, his head is hanging down, his posture an odd juxtaposition of defeated and refusing to surrender.

_If I had one more last chance, I’d tell him—_

_I’d tell him—_

_I’d tell Ca— I’d tell him that I’m so sorry. I’d tell him that if I could I’d go back to every time I felt him reach toward me and pretended I didn’t feel it and moved away, and I’d go back and I’d fix it. I’d tell him that I knew. I’d tell him that I was afraid, so afraid to know it and made myself believe that I didn’t. I’d tell him about all the years I couldn’t look at his mouth or his hands or his stupid sex hair or—_

_I couldn’t look at him without hearing my dad’s voice in my head and I’m so sorry I couldn’t make myself shout him down. But I’d tell him now that I wanted to look._

_I’d tell him that I saw him, I really saw him, and that he’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, woman or man, human or angel. I’d tell him—_

_I’d tell him that I’d let him watch over me any time he wants, ever._

_I’d tell him that he’s so much more than a brother._

_I’d tell him that I—_

_I’d tell him—_

Dean chokes, on words he’s not even trying to push through his throat.

He opens his eyes and lifts his face to the light bouncing off the water.

He coughs on a laugh; it’s funny to think of what those girls with that damn musical would think to see Dean Winchester now, no “single man tear” happening now, no goddamn subtext happening now. There’s no one here to see, but he’s not sure it would matter if there were. He’s ready to let this go.

And he does.

Great, gasping sobs echo shallowly back from the drop off the jetty. Dean lets his shoulders go loose, lets his face go slack, allows the longing and regret and love to spill out of him with the tears. The regret fades as it mingles with the longing, shifts from guilt to wishing.

_I wish I could tell you to your stupid face._

_I wish I could hold you and never let go._

_I wish I could make you the best damn hamburgers you ever had and that you’d taste the love in them more than the molecules and feed you pie and let you have the last slice every time._

_I wish I could give you back your grace, all of it, whole and healthy and strong and everything._

_I wish you’d still want me if you had it._

As if that would matter now.

Dean drops his face back to his hands, rubs furiously at his eyes with his palms before settling his forehead on his fingertips.

_I wish—_

_I—_

_I want you, man. I mean, I want you here. If you want to be. When you get tired, I guess. You’re older than dirt, yeah? I don’t want to rush you, though. I just. I wish I could tell you how much I’d want you to join me here. If you can. If you want to._

_And yeah, I want you. Not just here. Like, want you want you. If you want me. I think you…_

_I mean, I’ve got eyes, right? I can’t have imagined it all._

_I wish you could hear me._

_I wish I—_

_I need you._

_Fuck._

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

_I love you._

Dean pushes up from the chair as a groan wrenches up out of his chest. He needs to move. It occurs to him, so late, that he has no way to know if he’s gotten through anyway, if all this mess even counted as prayer. And it’s such a mess, he doesn’t trust his own logic right now, or his senses. He could swear he heard the old, faint, whispering whoosh-flutter as he was moving, but it was just the creaking and shifting of the canvas and rusty chair joints heaving, overlapping the echoes of his desperation. He’s frozen now, his body a hard line of indecision, unable to even decide which side to turn to to retrace his steps back up the pier from the lake.

Then finally, with a last sniffle of resignation, he relaxes. He’s going to go love on the people he can reach. He knows in his heart that Cas will forgive him, even in his grief. And for Castiel, he will somehow forgive himself, eventually. He moves one foot out to the side to pivot, and then

 

Warm

Steady

Unhesitating

Electric

Unmistakable

 

A hand on his shoulder. And then

 

“ _Hello, Dean_.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 


End file.
